CFACT's SUV Security patrol helps balance volatile issue at Wisconsin campus.

You often hear that in many college classrooms, legislative office buildings, and even church sanctuaries across America, many insist that preventing climate change is a moral imperative.   Unfortunately, you rarely hear that 18,000 scientists have gone on record to say they see no scientific evidence that humans are altering our climate. Nor do you learn that today’s computer models are too primitive to predict next winter’s climate – much less the climate for 2025 or 2050.   You’re rarely told that satellites have found almost no warming over the past 20 years, or that ground temperature gauges are so contaminated [...]

A couple of years ago, a group called the Clean Air Task Force published a study indicating that ?nationwide, power plant pollution is cutting short the lives of 30,100 Americans each year.?  This report, along with other claims emanating from such groups as the NRDC, seemed to create the perception that unless we begin a massive effort to cork smokestacks, we?ll all be choking in clouds of toxic smog real soon.  Indeed, a recent poll showed that 78 percent of those surveyed were concerned about this ?problem.?   Now comes an article by the Georgia Public Policy Institute that is blowing [...]

For a while it appeared that environmentalists and labor union organizations were quite happy, though strange, bedfellows. When these powerhouses of the American political system combined forces on issues – such as the WTO protests a couple years ago – they were hard to ignore. However, it appears that the honeymoon phase of the relationship is over and, as is typical of such trysts, these two organizations are realizing they do not have as much in common as they once thought.     The rift between these groups began last March when the 720,000 member United Auto Workers Union sided with the Big [...]

The sky is falling!  Well, maybe not, even though the American Lung Association (ALA) seems to be making that claim in relation to ozone pollution. Indeed, in a recent and well-publicized report, the organization flunked numerous counties' air quality. But some simple facts about ozone pollution show the ALA study is fraught with several noteworthy flaws.Studies of children, adults, and the elderly have shown that adverse effects appear when the ozone level reaches or exceeds 12 parts per million (ppm) for three or more hours, especially when accompanied by preexisting respiratory disease and physical activity. So the pollutant usually needs to be [...]

     “Higher average temperatures result in the melting of glaciers, in ice being discharged into the oceans from the ice caps of Antarctica.”      So stated Al Gore in his well-known book, Earth in the Balance. Indeed for years, many have been echoing similar alarms about the state of the Antarctic, claiming that rising temperatures are causing a melting of the polar cap and a rise in sea levels.     Such rising sea levels, of course, could cause all manner of mayhem – as coastal cities and tropical islands would be covered in ever-rising ocean waters and whole ecosystems and urban populations [...]

     Is the ice covering the North Pole melting?     Well, according to many global warming proponents, the answer is most assuredly "Yes," and for over a decade now they have been regularly voicing concern about an impending ice melt.     But now comes new research by the Institute of Ocean Sciences of Canada that may put the deep-freeze on such concern. According to the soon-to-be-published research, much of the ice claimed to be missing in the Arctic may in fact not be missing at all, but may in fact be shuffled around and hiding elsewhere.     The researchers point out that submarine data between [...]

    From the beginning of its debate, the issue of global warming has included discussion about the possibility of melting ice-caps. Lately, though, old studies are being re-examined, and now it seems as though it is the science, not the frozen H20, that can?t take the heat.     For instance, in one study published in Science Magazine in December of 1999, it was reported that the Arctic Polar icecap may have decreased by as much as 14% over a 20 year period. However, upon re-evaluation, it was later published that virtually all of that decrease occurred during a sharp drop over [...]

     When the Bush administration withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, howls of protest emerged from all over the world – especially China. This is because the Chinese government was claiming it was reducing its use of fossil fuels even at a great cost to its economy, so why couldn’t the U.S. do the same?     Indeed, so remarkable was the Chinese achievement that its assertions – i.e. about being able to grow its economy by a hefty 36% while decreasing both its energy output and greenhouse gas emissions by 17 and 14 percent respectively – had many enviro’s looking to the Eastern [...]

     For years, those critical of computer models suggesting a warming of the earth's temperature were ridiculed as "nay Sayers" and "flat-earthers". Global Climate Models (a.k.a. GCMs), believed many, can be relied upon with certainty to predict future global warming.     Now comes new research suggesting the "nay Sayers" may not be flat-earthers, but flat-out right thinkers.     The problem with the GCMs has always been their relationship to cloud cover, which tends to regulate the earth's temperature to a far greater degree than the models suggest. The new research, conducted by the American Meteorological Society, has uncovered a huge heat vent over the [...]

     Recently,  the Washington Post ran a high-profile story about the state of climate science. On January 23rd, the paper's headline succinctly read:     "Scientists Issue Dire Prediction of Warming."     In brief, the article discusses how scientists from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have reported new data showing the earth's temperature increasing 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 and sea levels rising by a hefty 34 inches over that same period. This is actually a little more dramatic than the U.N.'s last major assessment in 1995, which then showed the earth's temperature only going up 6.3 degrees during the next century.     [...]

By Michael FumentoThe following is excerpted from Mr. Fumento's book, Polluted Science: The EPA's Campaign to Expand Clean Air Regulations Call it the November Surprise.  Three weeks after President Clinton secured his second term, the EPA unveiled proposals for sweeping new standards that will once again ratchet down the amount of air pollution allowed in our cities.  The agency and its administrator, Carol Browner, claimed the new restrictions on ozone and particulates would prevent 20,000 premature deaths annually.  And all this will cost us essentially nothing.  In fact, it will boost the economy! As the old aphorism warns, things that sound [...]

CFACT Briefing Paper #103 For much of this century clean air has been a public concern.  Many are troubled by the health impacts smog, soot and other airborne particles are alleged to cause.  Most Americans, to be sure, are happy to see regulatory limits placed on machines, factories, and autos that are responsible for such pollution. Experts say the problem of dirty air is directly related to a situation called "the tragedy of the commons."  In essence, the argument goes, because air is free to be used by all, no one has to take responsibility to ensure it remains clean.  Therefore [...]

The day is like any other in the tiny Swiss village of Blumisalpen.  The rising sun is glistening off the fresh covering of just-fallen snow, and as he has done nearly every morning for the last fifty years, Dr. Jean Pereault is stopping in at the bakery before heading over to open the doors of his modest practice.  Being the doctor in a hidden little hamlet where the people take good care of themselves means seeing only a few patients now and then to mend a bruise, fix an ankle, or deliver a baby.  And having just returned from an extended [...]

 Usually when you say something foolish, it's only your friendsand family you have to worry about avoiding when the chickens comehome to roost.  But every now and then, a bone-headed blunder hangsout there for the whole world to see.      Such was the case when Britain's Neville Chamberlainpronounced "peace in our time" shortly before Hitler's tanksblitzkrieged into Poland.  Such was the case when the Chicago DailyTribune went to press with its "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline,shortly before the haberdasher from Independence claimed his secondterm.  And such was the case this very winter when, based on aflimsy report regarding 1995's so-called "record" temperatures, [...]